A collection of automotive stuff, restaurant/travel-related items and personal observations; mostly a lot of claptrap, really.

Nashville

Taken a few years ago at some joint on Broadway in Nashville, this was one of several photos with good-looking girls I had never laid eyes on before. It wasn't my birthday, but the Nissan crew was telling every attractive female we encountered that it was. Here's to getting older!

Saturday, December 31, 2016

I'm not the kind of guy who likes to
talk – or in this case write – just to hear himself talk. I
constantly doubt my bone fides as a writer because, well, I don't
feel compelled to write. In fact, if I can avoid it, I do. For me
writing is a craft, like masonry, carpentry or plumbing. Writing is
the vehicle through which I earn a living. Often not much of a
living, but a living nonetheless.

Writing is a skill I've honed over more
than 30 years, but I don't wake up every morning with some random
thought and think, wow, I must express this idea; I've got to put pen
to paper. (For you children, “pen to paper” is a euphemism for
typing on a keyboard.) Nope; Steven King I'm not. When absent from
writing for a while, I certainly don't miss it.

The previous two graphs are a rambling
preface to a promise – more to myself than to you – to put more
effort into this blog going forward. I am writing this on December
31st , and my previous Clanging Bell post was November
20th. That's not a blog; it's a monthly journal.

When I launched the Bell, I was
experiencing a dry patch in paying work. Weeks might pass between
assignments. My career was a desert and each sporadic assignment a
rare oasis. I stumbled from one to the next, clutching to the hope
things would get better. They always had, but 2010 and 2011 were
dismal years in a career trajectory that mimicked an Acme rocket in
the coyote's arsenal.

I started the Bell toward the end of
2010, simply to exercise my writing skills. As with any other skill,
writing demands to stretch its legs on a regular basis. Because I
wasn't getting much in the way of money-earning work, I had to fake
it til I made it. I had to create a platform on which to practice my
skill while waiting for things to pick up.

I contributed posts almost daily. I
would search headlines in sports, entertainment and the auto industry
mining for blog topics. It wasn't that I believed readers were
actually looking forward to my thoughts on topics ranging from movies
to shed building, but I knew I needed to be writing something,
anything, to flex my creative muscle.

As paying work picked up, my blog posts
decreased. They dropped from 228 posts in 2011 to 126 in 2012, 79 in
2013 and so forth until they almost disappeared in 2016. Counting
this confession, I cranked out 25 posts this year – barely two per
month: a shoddy performance by any measure.

Other distractions beyond paying
assignments conspired to foil my best blogging intentions.
Home-remodeling projects elbowed their way onto my list of
priorities. In late summer, I launched just3thingsvideo.com. I've
been pouring the bulk of my creative juices into that for the past
six months. In fact, my plan for this morning was to edit a video,
but I made myself compose this post before allowing myself to spend
time on a video. It wasn't easy.

I don't make New Year resolutions, but
if I did, it would be to write at least one blog post per week in
2017. That's my goal. Will I follow through? Well, I've managed to
accomplish tougher tasks, but who knows? Stay tuned and we'll find
out.

My 4-1-1

I began covering the automotive industry in 1986, when I parlayed my position as a retail sales rep into helping conceptualize and establish a stand-alone automotive section for the Boca Raton News a Knight-Ridder newspaper in South Florida. In 1995 I moved to the Palm Beach Post to help develop its bi-weekly automotive pages. Leaving there in 2000, I freelanced car reviews to a variety of publications before assuming a senior editor position at AMI Autoworld magazine in 2001. While at AMI I helped launch NOPI Street Performance Compact magazine and was appointed its managing editor. I have been freelancing since leaving AMI in 2004. My regular outlets have included Hispanic Magazine, the Miami Herald, the Washington Times, the Journal-Register Newspapers, AAA Go magazine, MyCarData.com, Automotive Metrics, AutoTrader, Bankrate.com and Interest.com.

In addition to freelancing automotive reviews, from 1991 until 2001 I was supervising producer of the syndicated television series Discover America.